Minivan Momologues

No. 3 is into writing, which is surprising since the only previous flicker of interest we’d seen was solely in the area of Christmas-list development. Even then, he outsourced to his older sister who has such teeny, neat handwriting you’d swear it was a font straight off a computer. No way Santa mistakes “cool drum set” for “chicken drumstick” if she pens the list.

So one afternoon, ever full of surprises, he was quietly parked in front of the computer, typing intently.

Me: “What are you doing?”

Him: “Writing my autobiography.”

Yup, autobiography.

He’s 8.

As I stared at the screen, the mother half of me was incredibly amused. The journalist half? Horrified. Dude, where are your commas? Use some punctuation! His life story so far was a series of run-on sentences.

But, I could fix that. Later. First chance I got, I’d sneak into that file and tidy up things. Just like I do with his room.

Since I am more Kitty-cat Mommy than Tiger Mom, I kept this to myself and encouraged him.

“That’s awesome, buddy!”

Here is the beginning of No. 3’s autobiography. The first chapter of which is entitled “Getting Older.”

“November 17, 2004, that was the day I was born, and I was brought home two days after that.”

Those are, it goes without saying, my commas.

So far, so good. He got his facts straight, although he left out some critical details, like the fact that his poor mother had to push out his big-headed, nearly 9-pound body without the painkilling benefit of an epidural. Obviously, I need to bring that up more often.

He fast-forwarded a bit for the next part.

“Age one is a very easy age to be at, just sit around and sleep. Though it was a very hard age to deal with on my parents’ side of things. I would always want to be held while my mom made dinner. I would just sit and cry because I wasn’t being held.”

True dat. That boy loved nothing more than to be carried 24-7. And he was supremely heavy, like baby sumo wrestler heavy.

The next paragraph offered up his father’s birthdate. Wisely, he did not put mine in print. This makes him a top contender for Most Favored Child. Although, his flabby grammar could bump No. 1, who knows her punctuation, into the lead.

Contact Kristen Cook at kcook@azstarnet.com or 573-4194. Cook thinks it is an exceptionally cruel fact of life that just as you start to feel comfortable in your own skin, it starts to wrinkle and sag.